April 2026 The rest of the month.

 

April 2026

The rest of the month

The month started with Hospital appointments. Nothing serious, just check-ups. I went to mine on a fine day on the Kawasaki. It was great to have that expedition.

Next up was Observed Sunday with the Wey Valley Advanced Motorcyclists on the Buell and six trips out to the countryside towards  Amersham to put some miles on the bike. I have not been able to do much more due to the weather and I did more miles in the C3 which did give me some problems with the tyre pressure warning light going Birmingham showing incorrect pressure. Nothing was wrong until I worked out that it was a warning for over-inflation too. Just lowering the pressure a few psi was the solution. I am not used to measuring bar and still need to correct it to psi. One bar is equivalent to 14 psi. 2.5 bar is 35psi.

Doing a little gardening setting up the irrigation system for going away and ensuring that every pot that needs watering gets it. I did another little job to remake the roof for the wood store. I made a frame and used the salvage fence slats when the fence was replaced last year. Another just job that took all day.

I have had dodgy knees since  having the Covid vaccine and they are not getting any better to remedy that I have started walking nearly every day usually for about 50mins which works for me and is about two miles to build my muscles and make my knee joints feel more comfortable. So far that seems to be working.

To finish off the month there was Drive It Day which was different, two of the 2CV club are members of the Traction Avant club and this Drive It Day was with the Traction Avant Club and I was in the El Cid. We met up at Smith’s Garden Centre in Denham. Four Tractions and my Mehari look alike followed a route to Chesham and the De Havilland Aircraft Museum.More Tractions arrived all parked in front of the outside display of aircraft. It was an excellent museum with lots of interactive bits and Mosquitoes everywhere. The museum was not just about the aircraft, pilots and their heroic missions in World War 2. The developments after the war encapsulated how air travel moved from being only for the rich and privileged to mass travel. All in all it was a lovely day with like-minded people.

April 2026 Music and Dance

 

April 2026

Music and Dance

April is the month for Bihu time of traditional songs and dance, folk dances and classical all supported by food to make a real festive occasion. We went to two. The London Bihu in Feltham and a week later the Birmingham Bihu in West Bromwich. Although same festival each has its own character. The London Bihu had its main attraction imported directly from Assam and one of the popular singers of love songs,Shankuraj Konwar, who had the whole hall joining in to make a most memorable evening and prompted enthusiastic dancing from the audience.

By contrast Birmingham was a stop over having a night in the Mercure hotel with a check-in at 3pm that was an hour after the event started. The venue was a conference hall where reception was a snack and soft drink to keep you busy before the entertainment started. I checked-in to the hotel having my own adventure as I could see the hotel but not the entrance drive. Eventually finding it using Tom and Google maps. Checking-in was quick and easy and I was soon back at the event. There was lots of dancing from different local people also some favourite songs from local artists. Food was later served at the table and catered for everyone’s’ tastes. After the meal it was disco time and the dance floor was soon filled with people gyrating to the music. Another great evening enjoying the company of old friends and engaging with the next generation of Assamese in the UK.

Th Bhavan London was the venue for World Dance Day. The Bhavan has a small theatre and at this event Dance schools from all over the country performed. So many that I could recount who came from where but at the end of the performances there were more artists on stage than people in the audience. I think there were fourteen acts, some with so many people on stage at times there was only just enough room. There were some incredible performances that I could not capture on my phone but here are some photos and shorts to give a flavour of the evening. I enjoyed it immensely.

March 2026

 

March 2026

 

March started like February but Observed Sunday was not quite so wet. I used the car again and was learning the route to Normandy Village Hall. Perhaps next month I’ll use the bike. This month I felt I didn’t contribute much to the shop but it was a very social gathering.

For some reason the drive was very tiring this day and it was Tuesday I went for a blast on the Buell for about 40 miles and an hour in the sun through A roads and lanes around Beaconsfield and Amersham. I always think of the Missenden Flyer, when I see the signposts for Great Missenden, and Geoff of the biker scram. On Thursday I did the same again.

This was the week of computer woes. Not only having problems with Gita’s laptop and connectivity with her phone to make Whatsapp work consistently but my Windows 10 PC  did not want to perform at all and required Microsoft Edge to be re-installed to undo the update that had caused the problem in the first place. It is so annoying when these children do not think things through properly causing me hours of unnecessary work. I know it is going against the trend but I going to give Linux a go as an operating system.  I am fed up with the straight jacket that Microsoft has pulled us in to forcing us to use software that is so invasive that you have to pay for everything you use on it and filling up my memory with unnecessary programs that deliberately slow my PC down.

I have been working at doing more exercise after not being feeling great for much of last year it was time I made an effort to improve my fitness. I tried some walking programs, speed and navigation. And finally settled on the Ordinance Survey maps and navigation which has a cumulative distance program for your activities that is not just for hiking. I think it is helping my knees and I have clocked 87 km with this  hiking program for March.

Just before Christmas I saw an offer for 4 to 10 year olds 15 minute driving course in a proper half size car so I signed up Ena and Bipin for a session at Kempton Park. They were able to do the session together getting more time in the car. It was a cold day and rained after they had finished. I suffered from getting cold watching the kids go around the track. It will be some time before we see the value of doing this course.

Getting cold messed up my week. I did not feel right on the Monday so missed the 2CV club night but feeling better on the Tuesday I went to the LE club meeting at the Land of Liberty, Peace and Plenty at Chorley Wood and got cold again. A traditional pub with traditional heating. I was still ill at the end of the week and missed the French car day on the Saturday at Blackbushe Airport. The next week was no better I had a proper cold with cough and we were both invited for a long weekend away with the grandchildren in a “caravan” in Wells next to sea in Norfolk. We did not make the decision until Saturday and drove up on the Sunday feeling a bit better and able to drive. Arriving at lunch time and ready to eat the day was filled with a walk around Wells and in Holkham Forest and along the beach followed by fish and chips to complete the holiday mood. This was especially good for me to do some driving which I had not done much of over the winter. Longer days starting earlier transforms what you can do even better when it is warmer.

 

February 2026 Second Half

 

February 2026

Second Half

February continued with nicer weather good enough to have some longer walks in our local park with daffodils and hawthorn blossom emerging as the weather warmed. I had a phone call to an old friend, Les, from the model railway side of Whitewebbs Transport Museum. He had been the custodian of my model engines I had built in the early 80s until he had a stroke and left the museum leaving them with the office for me to collect. I had not been to the museum for over a year and decided to put that right. Another old friend is George, who also has not been well, I contacted to him to see if he wanted he wanted to go to the museum. It turned into a very social day for both of us. I collected my models and met some new faces at the museum and enjoyed the new display of bikes.

Chris is the lead for motorcycles at the museum and is also an active member of the LE Owners Club has reorganise the first floor display after the new lift was installed to make sufficient space for wheelchair access and found bikes to fill the space vacated by the loss of the Rex Judd collection and the loss of the valuable 1898 Holden. Sad for the museum but being a charity they had insufficient funds (millions) to buy the collection but other interesting bikes have replaced them. Museums that change their displays regularly are worth returning regularly.

Another fine day and spent some time in the back garden. The chimenea was moved to the middle of the lawn to burn some old wood and the rear supporting leg fell off. Part of the cast iron body had rusted away around the attachment bolts of the rear leg. Easy repair by putting a plate inside with new bolts to secure the leg in place.  It was tested out later with a warm glow lasting into the evening.

Last thing for the month was a visit to a jewellery faire at Kempton Park. It was not just gems necklaces and earrings but had quartz and bits of petrified wood and crystal balls. This was Gita’s element another skill hidden for years. It was just like me going to a bike show. Ooh! I like that and that and that! She made jewellery until life got in the way and now stimulated by the faire she bought a new stock of things to start making bits again.

February 2026 First Half

 

February 2026

First Half

We had a very wet January and the start of February was no better. Observed Sunday forced me into a car for my first attendance at the club meeting for 2026 at the new venue Normandy Village Hall. A new route to learn with satnav prompts and choosing different routes for me to follow each time it is programmed. Why does it do that? Despite the miserable weather there was a good turnout of bikes made resplendent by weak sun and pale shadows.

I had a meeting at home with a 2CV club member who was planning a trip through South Africa and wanted to know what mods I had done to the El Cid for my Endurance Rally around Morocco in 2004. With Adrian, my brother, navigating we came 19^th out of 33 entrants and first in our class. A good few hours of discussion took place that evening and great to pass on useful information and jog my memory.

I have an old remote hard drive that I needed some information from and when I plugged it in to my Windows 10 PC it didn’t work requiring a USB connection and not an ethernet one. To retrieve the information I needed to buy appropriate adaptors and power supplies. Chat GPT helped immensely to get the right components. All available on E-Bay and arriving in a few days.

With visits to the dentist, just a check-up and no drama followed by a trip to Charing Cross and a visit o the Neurology department to check my connections were still working was a torture of electric shocks and needles. The shocks gave me involuntary movements in limbs and face and the pins showed movement. There was a grotesque picture of me gurneying. It was a good job it lasted momentarily. Can you imagine the scenario of walking into hospital normally and leaving a twitchy wreck. I used public transport this day to support ULEZ  and got a fictitious  charge on my account for a journey I did not do in the Burton. It is a better method now of being able to challenging it on line.

I completed changing the shower thermo cartridge after many weeks of procrastination doing the job was easier than the thought of doing it and now have hot water in all the right places. I stripped the old one down to find out how it works and discovered there was not much wrong with it other than a bit of wear and no greace to keep it running smoothly and plug the gaps on the shaft and splines.

On the few fine days I started the Burton after a couple of months to check everything was still working then the El Cid to make sure the windscreen wipers were still working for the planned visit to the French car meeting at Blackbushe Airport. There was the dry ride on the Buell via Amersham a combination of A roads, lanes and motorways to complete a circuit.

For some reason the upgrade of Edge caused me enormous problems that include links in emails, slowed my PC down to a crawl and disrupted many of the operational software. To sort it out I had to reinstall the Edge program. This rectified many things including the speed of the Windows 10 PC. It is now obvious to me that Windows wants me to buy a new PC for their newest operating system, not offering an upgrade. Making life even more difficult by making you look for the specifications of the PC to see whether it is upgradable and what it can be upgraded to. Where do you find this information. All this is to make everything more expensive and ties you into them with systems you now have to pay for like 365, cloud storage, even PDFs all of which require internet access to work. Useless when travelling even in the UK.

We had a lovely evening out at the Becks Theatre seeing the Dire Straits tribute band “Money for Nothing” giving renditions of Telegraph Road and Love Over Gold. It was a night to remember.

 

January 2026

 

January 2026

 

I have been trapped by the weather it being too wet or too cold. At the beginning of the month frost and snow enough to have had Observed Sunday cancelled allowing me to stay in bed warm. There are now safety guidelines that gatherings should not take place if it is 5C and below. Sensible really especially in rural areas unexpected pockets of ice can catch you out particularly on Sunday mornings when traffic is light. When it wasn’t freezing there were gray skies and rain, rain and more rain. Not good for arthritis but I managed to do some walking pretty much every day to get rid of the stiffness in my joints. I often feel like I am losing the use of my legs.

Ice on the canal

As the weather was not good I set about sorting out a problem with the showers in the house. The upstairs one works with good temperature control but the thermal valve leaks a little. However the downstairs one gets no hot water at all. After a Corgi call out about it the diagnosis was the upstairs shower thermal valve was damaged to the extent that it allowed hot and cold water to mix rendering all the hot taps down stairs cool. I then set about ordering a new thermal valve. Apparently not the right one. Weeks later I still have not tracked down the right one. I will have to remove the valve, take measurements and photos and to do this I will have to turn the water supply off. No water, you can prepare for but no heating at this time of year is a disaster.

Tap into disaster

On one cloudy but dry for a bit day I escaped on the Buell on a forty mile loop to Amersham and returning via Beaconsfield and a blat along the M40 back home. The roads were dry except one short section which was muddied by HS2 work between Beaconsfield and High Wickham. It stretched from a tee junction over two close roundabouts. Covering the Buell and me with mud splats. It now needs washing as does my gear. The joys of winter riding.

Buell after the ride

Gita and I received a Christmas present that was a Spa break at a Warner hotel. A bit of luxury at a posh hotel that has swimming pool, sauna and massage parlour. We enjoyed it all with lots of food and entertainment. It could have been Hotel California but not quite as the entertainment for Saturday night was Talon an Eagles tribute band and they were excellent. While there we did walks along the Thames which was flowing so fast and only inches away from bursting its banks. It is a chain hotel and there are a number throughout the country it is a thought for other breaks throughout the year and with entertainment.

 I have not used the El Cid or the Burton since last year. After breaking the fan pulley wheel and overheating the engine of the El Cid I thought it would be prudent to change the engine oil. This I did on a cold dry day. Making a mess and just getting everything tidied up before the weather changed it was a chore that needed to be done before I forgot about it.

December 2025

 

December 2025

 

December started in India staying with my sister-in-law, Bhonti her son Ankur and her mother. We had travelled to Delhi for a memorial of Gita’s brother who had passed away in May. Having just got back in April we were unable to go again for the funeral in May. Our visas had expired. Our son Amit was also with us on this trip. He was going on a spiritual experience in Coimbatore.

 At the beginning of the visit Chinmoy and Lakhu from Assam joined us in Delhi making it a very special time. It was a bit like having an early Christmas but being away I missed the December Observed Sunday and the subsequent move from Cobham Village Hall to Normandy Village Hall for the January Observed Sunday. The roads have fewer restrictions and less traffic that should make getting out into the countryside easier and quicker for tuition sessions.

I was back in time for the Thames Tortoises Christmas meal on the club night, third Monday of the month. Only three of us to enjoy the evening, Richard, Peter and myself. I have been given a challenge to take some photos of the modifications made to the El Cid for the Sahara Challenge I did in 2004. This was having installed protection plates for the sump and the petrol tank. I had been warned by the experts that there should be no space for stones to get into. The best thing is to have foam to ensure this. It gives room for impacts from rocks and stones room for the plate to move to and not damage what you to protect. The sponge also stops small stones from getting into that space and causing damage.

The next night was the LE club night and also there was a Christmas meal. Earlier in the evening and not at our usual pub. When we finished we continued at our usual venue, with Chris. Antony, Phil and myself in attendance. It was a very social evening exchanging Christmas cards and knowledge. Another festive night out.

Christmas was a family affair made most enjoyable by having the grandchildren present with all the chaos that surrounds them when they have too much energy that cannot be dissipated in a small house. There were frequent walk to parks and excursions to any activity that kept them busy. The highlight was going ten pin bowling with the kids doing better than the adults at Westfield. What a place and I found the place difficult to get to with the volume of traffic, parking and finding the bowling alley an unpleasant experience. It is just too big with too many people. It annoys me you have to pay a tenner just to park! I can go to Uxbridge, pay £2 for parking and no hassle and still go bowling.

Before that experience it was another French Car Day at Blackbushe airport with another gathering of Citroen friends. It was so cold that retiring to the cafe for a hot drink was essential. We all had a pleasant hour staying out of the cold before it was time to head for home.